Wenatchee City Council Approves Improvements to Pioneer Park

The Wenatchee City Council has approved a nearly quarter-million dollar construction bid for improvements to Pioneer Park.

The city's aspirations for the park were made explicit at a meeting on Thursday night. They include filling a glaring sidewalk gap on Fuller St. and adding ADA-friendly parking spaces. New paved paths will allow for greater interconnectedness. According to parks & rec director Dave Erickson,

What we want to do is connect the sidewalk from Russell St., all the way up to the pool building, and then it continues on from there. We'd also be adding ADA parking spots to bring that up to compliance.  And then internal to the park, some linking walkways to connect the restroom building, the play equipment, the skate park - to have accessible travel amongst all those elements there.

Click here for a visual representation.

The project, awarded to Pipkin Construction and funded under the 2025 budget, will hopefully be completed by May 30 - just in time for the opening of the public pool!

As Erickson freely acknowledges, "It's kind of a quick project - a quick turnaround. But we want to try and get it done before we have all those people descending on the pool area for the season."

He explains why Pipkin Construction stood out as the city's most viable option:

We took the project out to bid earlier this year - Jan. 2 through the 30th. We were amazed that we got 14  competitive bids, which was awesome. Pipkin was a low bidder, a little over $228,000, which is well within our budget for this project.

Future plans for the park are equally practical. The city wants to replace existing light poles and add a group picnic shelter.